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Born in Slough on 28th April 1870, Cecil Aldin was educated at Eastbourne College and Solihull Grammar School. He studied art at the RCA and under Frank F. Calderon.

Aldin illustrated hundreds of books throughout his lifetime, one of his first major commissions being Kipling's Jungle Stories. At 22, he took on a studio in Chelsea and began to obtain regular work and his illustrations were published in many magazines during the 1890s. In 1895 he married, moved to Chiswick and became one of a circle of artists who between them formed the London Sketch Club.

As Master of the South Berkshire Hunt, Aldin was a keen huntsman and many of his prints depict horses. Unusually, he also carried the horn with harriers, beagles and bassets, and drew animals of all kinds as well as his well-known hunting and coaching scenes, with humour and precision.

Cecil Aldin painted mainly in water-colour, but he was also famous for being a master of caricature in the drawing of both humans and animals. The quality of his art can be seen in most of his work, particularly in his many famous drawings of his family of dogs.

Cecil Aldin died in 1935 and his work is now highly collectable. He is regarded as being one of the most original and very best sporting artists of the twentieth century.

About this Piece

Cecil Aldin’s canine portraits were amongst the most popular of his works and, thanks to dozens of magazine and newspaper illustrations, together with a number of his own books, the celebrity of some of his canine models grew so great that one, Cracker, received his own obituary in “The Times” when he died.
In the introduction to his popular book “An Artist’s Models” in September 1930, Cecil Aldin commented on his canine friends: “A professional artist’s model is generally paid by the day or hour in coin or paper of the realm. My professionals are paid for their work with free board and lodging, two walks a day and an annual holiday on Exmoor. For this they have to pose when required, and to remain quiet in the workshop when other visiting models are sitting. On no account are they allowed to be unpleasant to any canine strangers who may appear in the studio for business purposes. This, as partners in the firm, they fully understand.”
Aldin’s book divided his models neatly into his own “professionals” and the dogs which were brought to him for painting, or the “amateurs”. Amongst his “professional” models was perhaps the most famous pair, Cracker the bull terrier and Micky the Irish wolfhound, who featured in their own book “Sleeping Partners”, but Aldin’s output included countless paintings of other dogs, dozens of which are lovingly described as individuals in his charming book, “An Artist’s Models”. Most of Aldin’s models were of course the pets of the wealthy and well-connected, but he does make the interesting point that “somehow or other more wise mongrels seem to come my way than show dogs”.